Minnesota coach Kevin O’Connell praised JJ McCarthy for his play, and the best way he exuded perception to his team-mates, after the quarterback impressed the Vikings to a comeback 27-24 win at the Chicago Bears last night.
The Vikings trailed 17-6 at the beginning of the ultimate quarter however McCarthy, who was making his NFL debut, threw landing passes to Justin Jefferson and Aaron Jones Snr earlier than working in one among his personal to disclaim Bears’ coach Ben Johnson a profitable begin to his tenure.
O’Connell delighted with McCarthy bow
O’Connell was impressed with not simply McCarthy’s actions but in addition his phrases as he maintained confidence in his capacity to get the job accomplished.
He mentioned: “There’s no approach to deny that we don’t win this recreation until JJ performs the best way he did within the second half and, most significantly, saved the assumption of his soccer workforce behind him.
“Now we all know it’s doable. We hope to not be in these circumstances fairly often, however his workforce’s product of the proper stuff.”
Proper deal with Brian O’Neill was equally inspired by the best way McCarthy spoke on the sideline after throwing a choose six early within the third quarter.
“He believed that it was about to pop,” O’Neill mentioned. “There’s plenty of occasions the place you’re like, ‘Yeah, all proper, cool. Let’s go, no matter.’ However the conviction in his voice and the way he was strolling up and down the sideline speaking to everyone, little particulars about completely different performs, getting guys locked in within the huddle. It was actually cool to see.”
Early struggles make manner for dominant end
It was McCarthy’s first aggressive recreation since January 2024. He was chosen tenth by the Vikings within the 2024 draft however then suffered an MCL damage that noticed him miss the whole lot of his rookie season.
He struggled early on, managing simply 48 yards within the first half, earlier than his late explosion received the job accomplished.
“The protection saved us in it the entire time, so it was simply on our shoulders to go on the market and execute and play as one and transfer on from that,” mentioned McCarthy.
“That’s a kind of issues I don’t actually dangle on. And I used to be actually grateful the best way coach O’Connell dealt with it and was everybody on the identical web page.”
